1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to consolidation of backups.
2. Background Art
Conventional methodology for updating archived data using incremental backups typically uses an initial backup, such as a backup of data from a data storage device, and some incremental backups. The initial backup stores initial data, i.e., data that was backed up during the first data archiving. Incremental backups store only data that changed on the storage device since the previous incremental backup. Every incremental backup can be represented by a file, so as time goes by, and with frequent archiving, there are numerous such files that need to be stored on the disk, and the disk storage space occupied by such files increases constantly. In most cases, a lot of old restoration points are not needed, e.g., a critical time for a local machine, server, etc., has passed, and the data chunk at this point in time is no longer needed. However deleting some backup files is often not possible, because all data backed up within it will be lost, and restoration of the next backup cannot be performed, since the next backup can consist of links to the data stored in the previous backup(s). Thus, the entire subsequent series of the backups can be corrupted, and data cannot be restored in those cases.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a more efficient method of backup consolidation.